


survival is an infinite capacity for suspicion

by youheldyourbreath



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, and she definitely doesn't mean everything that happens after, but what is a girl to do when a boy looks at her like she is the entire universe?, mary jane watson is a secret agent with an alias-- michelle jones, she doesn't mean to fall in love with her mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-07-13 15:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16020962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: Mary Jane Watson hated her codename. She was a SHIELD agent, for Christ’s sake, and teasing her about her nickname—MJ—was tacky and tired. But Nick, in his way, was trying to help her adjust to her first undercover mission and a little symmetry did make the transition from the SHIELD base to field work simpler.She had expected to be dropped into enemy territory to bring down unjust regimes. She had thought perhaps they would station her in the belly of some company with ties to HYDRA.Instead, she got Midtown School of Science and Technology.And babysitter duty for one unruly, misguided and inconveniently beautiful spider-menace. Peter Parker.





	1. code name: Michelle Jones

Mary Jane Watson hated her codename. She was a SHIELD agent, _for Christ’s sake_ , and teasing her about her nickname—MJ—was tacky and tired. But Nick, in his way, was trying to help her adjust to her first undercover mission and a little symmetry did make the transition from the SHIELD base to field work simpler.  

So, if he wanted her to go by that ridiculous name, she would comply. After all, orders were orders. And Mary Jane was a compliant agent.

She had been that way since she had begun her training as a SHIELD agent at ten when the world went to shit with aliens and superheroes and Gods from other worlds. Her world was irrevocably changed when the New York Times office tower collapsed and both of her parents had died in one fowl swoop. It changed again when Nick Fury scouted her from her dingy, tattered foster home on Staten Island and took her out of the system to place her in another.

When she arrived at the SHIELD base with a group of fifteen other kids all around her age, all knobby knees and no parents, it had been the most terrifying moment of her life. The next four years taught her that day one was a walk in the park compared to what lay ahead. When the four years ran out, she was at the top of her class, and a finely tuned weapon for SHIELD to harness and use at their discretion.

She had expected to be dropped into enemy territory to bring down unjust regimes. She had thought perhaps they would station her in the belly of some company with ties to HYDRA.

Instead, she got Midtown School of Science and Technology.

And babysitter duty for one unruly, misguided and inconveniently beautiful spider-menace. Peter Parker.

Every day he ate a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. It came in foil with a post-it note tacked on the front. The notes their freshman year ranged from soft reminders about his afterschool activities to lovely, kind words from his Aunt May.  When his Uncle Ben died, the notes turned into reminders to breathe. To center himself and soldier through the day. He struggled the first few months, wracked with guilt and _Michelle_ pretended she did not know why. But _Mary Jane_ had been trailing him and saw the whole gruesome murder.

The agent saw Ben Parker die. The girl watched as Peter Parker failed to keep his uncle alive.  

At school, Mary Jane catalogued the post-its in her ratty notebook from her perched point at the end of his lunch table. It didn’t seem important, but all intel was better than no intel. Besides, it almost felt like the notes were for her sometimes. The little reminders to have a good day, to smile, to remember that life was beautiful helped when being undercover at seventeen threatened to consume her completely.

Her job was to be invisible. Her Michelle persona was perfectly crafted to watch him up close and personal. No one minded the weird girl with the purple streak in her hair and the cutting frown. And if Michelle was like Mary Jane in many ways— from their passions in literature and justice to their sarcastic wit—well, Mary Jane told her superiors it was merely a coincidence.

She was on the outskirts for nearly a year. Until she was deep undercover. Friend of the Spider-man.

Mary Jane became his friend, as part of her cover, after the Liz Allen-Toomes debacle. Tony Stark had been practically distraught when he found out that his protegee had followed a murderous villain sixty-thousand feet in the air on the back of an invisible airplane. SHIELD looked for someone to place the blame. It feel very easily at her feet as the agent assigned to his safety.

Fury had stormed back and forth at their debrief in one of the abandoned conference rooms upstate, then, and ranted, “Your job is to keep that kid safe!”

Mary Jane had bit her tongue and countered, “I couldn’t very well chase after him in a prom dress. It would’ve blown my cover.”

Fury fumed, “Then, you need to change. You need to be on him 24/7. Stark will pull out of the Accords if that kid isn’t kept safe. That’s the deal.”

She had pinched the bridge of her nose and taken a deep breath, “It’s already out-of-character for Michelle to be at all of those parties, to be a part of all of those afterschool teams. What do you suggest I do?”  
“Innovate,” had been his reply.

And so, she innovated. Michelle turned from purposeful loner to tentative friend in six months. She infiltrated the Leeds-Parker two-some without much hesitancy on the boys’ end. It had almost been like they were hoping for more friends, as if being outsiders was exhausting. Mary Jane tried not to empathize.

Friendship was easy to navigate. The growing heated looks between Michelle and Peter were not. She ignored the looks he gave her over the tops of chemistry books in class or the soft smile that engulfed his entire face when she laughed. She pretended it was her cover, the way she looked back, but she was not a good enough agent to gaze at him the way she often caught herself doing. There was an inexplicable pull that hooked into her navel and tugged them closer and closer.

Day by day.

Hour by hour.  

It was only a matter of time when the heat exploded into a full-blown fire.

* * *

On her seventeenth birthday, Peter took Michelle out of the city, out of the borrows, and into nature. They sat in silence the entire train ride to his surprise and the silence was a heavy, relentless beast. It only quieted when Peter exhaled out of his nose and inched their fingertips closer, barely touching.

Michelle sucked in a breath and Mary Jane felt her heart run wild. It pattered furiously and then ceased to beat at all when he bravely linked their pinkies.

She glanced at his profile, but he did not look at her. His eyes were settled pointedly on the horizon out the window. The world whipped by as the train chugged forward.

The final whistle, the last call, jerked the pair of them out of their daydreams and Michelle cautiously unwound their fingers. The two padded along in silence as they boarded off the train. And if their hands brushed with each step off the platform, well, Mary Jane told herself it was all for her cover.

They took a taxi to the outskirts of a field as the sun began to set. The sky was miraculous shades of pink and purple and scattered sunlight. She gnawed on her lip as she watched Peter wade out into the unruly flowers and grass. He looked over his shoulder and grinned at her so openly, so carelessly that she suddenly ached for the youth that had been stripped of her when she was shuttled upstate to become a spy.

“Come on,” he beckoned.

She foolishly followed him. Mary Jane climbed through the green and watched as Peter settled into the flowers on his back. She rolled her eyes, ever in character, and tsked, “We took a two hour train ride to lay in the grass.”

He propped himself up on his elbows and a smile crinkled the corner of his eyes, “No. We took a two hour train ride to see the stars. Light pollution is too intense in the city.”

With a huff, Michelle dropped her bag to the ground and lay beside the boy with grass in his hair. She turned her head to look at him when she settled. He was so beautiful up close. The sunset danced all kinds of rosy hues across his barely-there freckles. Looking at him this way, feeling the overwhelming string of connection pulse between them, was not her mission. He muddled her purpose. Damn him, the beautiful, noble boy with one floofy eyebrow.  “Well,” she swallowed, “You got me to lay on some grass. Congrats.”

He beamed and wiggled closer to her, almost touching her flattened hand, “And all I had to do was ask. You getting soft on me, Jones?”

Michelle playfully shoved her hand in his face, “How dare you.” He caught her fingertips and the air was vacuumed out of the vast field. “Peter—”

“Shh,” he hushed her gently.

She felt her eyes flutter shut out of her own control and she cursed this day, this moment, these feelings, and this boy. “Peter,” she whispered, again.

His breath was tickling her cheeks. Without even looking, she knew that he was so close all she had to do was press her head an inch or two forward and they would be kissing. “Look,” he instructed.

Her eyelids danced open and the sunset was nothing but a vague glow of pink in the distance. The real miracle was the wealth of stars that littered the sky above her head. They were not overtly bright yet. The sunset and the stars were both fighting for command of the heavens. But she could see them. Twinkling above the heads of two teenagers with far too much responsibility thrust upon them.

Michelle gasped, “Oh wow.”

She felt him watching her. She could nearly imagine his stupid smile, “I know, right? My, uh, Dad used to take me here to watch the stars.”

Mary Jane could not help the flood of information that skipped across the stage of her mind. She knew all about Richard Parker. The scientist that died in a plane crash when the star boy was only four years old. It was not something Peter had ever told Michelle, but it was a case study that Mary Jane knew all too well.

She suddenly felt guilty for owning private parts of his life, especially when those parts had not been gifted but taken.

Mary Jane did not dare look at him.

Peter hardly minded. He plowed on, enraptured by the grass, the sky, and by her. “I don’t remember much. I was four when he died. But I remember these nights, this sky. Who could ever forget a sky like this one?”

Mary Jane made herself ask, “Why did you bring me here?”

“I want to share it with you.” His answer was so simple, so heartbreakingly earnest, Mary Jane shifted her head to look at him. And found him already watching her.

“Peter, there is so much I want to tell you,” her voice broke on the start of her confession.

He shook his head and brushed the pad of his thumb across her cheekbone. His eyes flickered between her eyes and her mouth. Eyes and mouth. And Mary Jane shivered. “We’ve got time,” he replied.

And then, he was kissing her.

And she was kissing him back.

* * *

“I’m compromised,” Mary Jane announced, hanging in the doorway of Fury’s office.

The man raised his one good eyebrow, “Watson, don’t you have some kind of MOCA fieldtrip today?”

“I’m out,” the seventeen year old lifted her chin, all steel. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Her superior labored out of his seat and turned the corner of his desk to sit on the edge, “What do you mean you’re out?”

She firmly repeated, “I’m out. I’m done. I quit.”

Fury laughed, “You can’t just quit, Watson. It doesn’t work like that.”

Mary Jane was not afraid anymore. There had been a boy and moonlight and a kiss that made her brave. There was so much he didn’t know, so much she couldn’t keep from him anymore and she would not. Her resolve was unshakeable. It had been so many years since she had been looked at by someone that cared about her. All of that had crumbled when her parents had died. But Peter had lit that flame of affection back in her chest and she would not forsake him for her job. Her stupid, ridiculous prison.

He deserved better than that and so did she.

If Mary Jane was an agent, maybe she had to die to let Michelle crawl toward the light.

Fury paused and was visibly flooded with cold understanding, “You got too close to your mark.”

“Nick—”

“Damn it, Watson! What is our one rule?”

“I don’t care. I can’t do this anymore.”

Nick Fury cut straight to the heart of her failings as an agent, “You got soft for a pair of pretty eyes.”  

The accusation was so visceral, she splintered, “I was a kid, Nick. You took me away from my life and made me a weapon.”  
Fury snapped, “I made you strong!”

Mary Jane roared, “You stole my childhood!”

The silence that enveloped the room was keen and vicious. It was the kind of silence that colored the darkest hours of night when everything dangerous came out to play. Fury squinted, “Get out.”

“Gladly,” she retorted.

* * *

The lengthy train ride back to Queens was liberating. Mary Jane knew she had to explain everything to Peter, but, for the first time in a long time, she hoped. There was a future for her beyond the never-ending half-life of espionage. There was a boy with uneven eyebrows and a lopsided grin that lit up whenever she walked in the room that was worth gambling on. Because he was loyal and wonderful and kind. And when he kissed her she felt her stomach swoop and make room for more emotion than she had ever dreamed. For that, for him, she would do whatever she had to do to make up for the lies and be worthy of him.

Her phone buzzed.

There was only one google alert that she had on her phone—Spider-man.

Mary Jane watched the grainy video from downtown in horror. One minute Spider-Man was clinging to a light post and the next he was being swept up in an alien beam and disappearing from sight. Anxiety filled her, hot and overwhelming, and she began to frantically search for answers as to where he went and if he was safe. The news reported that Iron-Man flew up to help Spider-Man and neither had returned.

She fumbled off the train in a daze and tried to gain her bearings.

Her phone rang, again. “Ned?” she whispered.

“MJ,” his voice cracked. “MJ, I let him go. I let him go.”

* * *

The two friends spent the next two days at the Parker’s apartment in a constant state of worry. There were no answers and all of the theories were less than comforting. Twelve hours into their vigil a man on the news suggested that both Tony Stark and the Spider-Man were dead. Mary Jane broke the television in a flurry of violent, uncontrollable anger.

May Parker had swept her up in a cuddle, after, and rocked her back and forth. She imagined that the warm comfort might have been what a mother’s touch felt like. It had been so long that Mary Jane had forgotten.

When she woke up on the third day, she was alone. Ned and May were nowhere to be found. She padded into the kitchen, expecting to find May slaving over some lost-cause of a breakfast and Ned to be silently and politely making a back-up breakfast when May’s cooking went downhill.

She glanced at the clock and saw it was well past nine. “May?” Mary Jane called out, “Ned?”

Nothing. The world was still. The silence was universal. And she knew she was alone.

She called out more frantically, “May?? NED?”

Mary Jane fumbled for the phone in her pocket and began to search the news. There had been some kind of fight in Wakanda half-a-world away in the early hours of the morning New York time. And then, there had been something Twitter was calling the dusting. There were no answers. No rhyme or reason to these killings. Just death. A worldwide genocide.

She tried to call Nick with no answer. Then, Maria Hill. And every agent she could think of, but every call was met with a sickening silence.

* * *

Mary Jane laid in the darkness, she allowed it to consume her, for three days after the dusting. No one came looking for her. No one cared. All of the people in the world that she knew and cherished were gone. Dead or missing or dusted.

Just before midnight on that third day, her phone buzzed. Mary Jane dispassionately lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

A spotty, gritty voice called through the receiver, “Mary Jane?” The agent sat up like a shot. “I can’t get ahold of Nick. Or anyone.” There was a significant beat, “I know about the dusting. And I need your help.”

Something akin to hope bloomed in Mary Jane’s chest, “Captain Marvel?”

“Carol will do just fine,” the older woman corrected. “Now, are you in?”

Mary Jane thought of Nick and Maria. She thought of Ned. Of May. And she thought of Peter. Of his laugh and smile and dopey grin.

“I’m in.”


	2. the stowaway

In the new world, after the dusting, there was no order. Anarchy was the law of the land and those left of the old regime—leaders and police and the few remaining agents of actual good—were left to combat the chaos. Michelle paid all of that no mind. She walked through the world as it burned around her with only one purpose. To save her friends. If the sky fell and the world stopped spinning and the universe crumbled, she would still force herself through all of the muck to try and bring back her friends.

As the two SHIELD agents devised a plan to save the world, Captain Marvel, or Carol as she often corrected Mary Jane, recounted how and why she had returned to Earth. Before the final hours, Nick Fury had sent out a distress signal. Beyond the distress signal, Nick left nothing. There were little to no SHIELD’s resources left and, admittedly, it was a daunting task to save the world outmanned, outgunned, and without a clear vision of how to tackle genocide.

After three days of attempting to put together how and why the dusting happened, Mary Jane could only see one thread that seemed significant enough to pull on. Wakanda. There had been a surge of energy so significant in the small African country just before the dusting and she was not a child. There was no such thing as coincidences.

Carol balked at Mary Jane’s suggestion. “You’re joking,” she said. “You want us to go to some third-world country during a worldwide tragedy?”

Mary Jane nodded, “Yes.”

“Why?” Carol countered.

She gnawed on her lip. She was not a Senior Agent. She had never been asked to lead a mission before, and now the fate of the world rested on her silly hunch. Mary Jane knew it sounded ridiculous, but she could not shake her intuition. “Because I _know_ it matters.”

Carol raised her eyebrow, profoundly struck. “Okay,” she conceded. “To Wakanda.”

When they arrived at the border of the third-world country, soldiers paraded out of the trees with spears and swarmed the women before they even properly deplaned their aircraft. All of the sharp tips were pointed fiercely at the agents. Carol dropped her weapons immediately, but Mary Jane kept her finger on the trigger of the gun she swiftly drew from her leg harness. This new world was dangerous. She would not be caught without protection.

“Put down the gun,” an accented voice called from the line-up. “Or we will shoot.”

Carol raised her hands in surrender. “We understand. Right, Mary Jane?,” the older woman prodded.

Mary Jane grimaced. One of the Wakandian soldiers took a warning step forward, angling the unusual looking spear in her face. She did not miss the threat inherent in the action. “Put down the gun, I said,” the solider, a woman with a shaved head and steely eyes, repeated. Her voice was eerily calm. It was that tone, and that tone alone, that made Michelle lift her finger from the trigger. The woman gestured to the ground with the spear and Mary Jane huffed. She tossed the weapon on the grass.

The line of female soldiers all lifted their spears at once, retreating from the offensive. The woman that had addressed Mary Jane and Carol stepped forward, “Why have you come?”

Carol did not lower her hands. She spoke slowly and clearly, like her voice could be used as morose code. Mary Jane could almost hear the clicking message—“we are not the enemy”. Mary Jane almost smiled mirthlessly. “I’m Carol Danvers,” Carol introduced herself. “Nick Fury, the leader of the Avengers, called me to help. Before the dusting.”

The stoic solder’s eye twitched when Carol mentioned the dusting. She had lost someone, too. Everyone had. It killed without mercy and swept through the world. An entire planet of people. Gone.

“We have Avengers here,” she said. “In Wakanda.” The solider tersely barked orders in a language Mary Jane did not know. “I will take you to them.”

Carol tentatively lowered her hands, “Thank you.” The solider nodded stiffly. Carol, blessed and patient Carol, stepped forward. “Wait. What’s your name?”

The solider looked over her shoulder and curtly replied, “Okoye.”

* * *

Carol and Mary Jane were flown into the center of the Birnin Zana, the capital city, in handcuffs. The restraints were made of some odd, warped light that burned whenever Mary Jane tried to resist them. It was science like she had never seen before. Tony Stark had nothing on the innovations of Wakanda. There was a childlike part of Mary Jane that delighted in Wakanda. While the rest of the world was in tatters with looting and riots and disorder, Wakanda seemed to be the only corner of the world that was a sanctuary from the madness.

They arrived on a landing platform at the base of some great, hulking structure. Mary Jane craned her head back to absorb the scope of such an architectural feat. “It is remarkable, yes?” Okoye said.

Mary Jane dumbly nodded, “Like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Two soldiers nudged Mary Jane and Carol on two floating boards. They would not be allowed free roam of the city. The little hovercraft-like contraptions would guide them to their next destination.

Okoye walked two steps ahead of the floating plates. Together, they traveled up seemingly endless steps. It was miraculous. The art, the design, the attention-to-detail crafted in the bones of the building. It was almost dizzying enough to forget about the horrible state of the world. Almost.

The floating boards jerked to a stop when they arrived outside two imposing wooden double doors. One of the female soldiers in red yanked Mary Jane off of the plate. She staggered forward and sneered. Okoye raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Mary Jane’s actions. “You are a foreigner in our country during a time of great distress, a worldwide crisis. What did you expect? Hospitality?”  

“We have come in peace,” Michelle practically spat.

Okoye nodded at the two men guarding the door. “We shall see.” The double doors swung open with a creak that told years and years of history. This country was old. Their traditions were deep. And the doors were the gateway to something extraordinary.

There, sitting at the end of the open room, was a girl no older than Mary Jane. She was perched on edge of a throne that was swallowed her up in size and stature.

The tip of a spear nudged Mary Jane and Carol forward. Ever the diplomat, Captain Marvel ducked her head in respect, “Your majesty, thank you for meeting with us.”

“Okoye tells me you know Nick Fury?” The young royal asked.

Carol nodded, “I did. Yes.”

The girl leaned back in her throne, thoughtful and profoundly exhausted, “He has been dusted, too, then?”

Mary Jane said flatly, “Yes.”

The girl on the throne shifted her gaze to Mary Jane. There was a beat of curiosity that passed between the two teenagers. At the end of the world, in an asylum city, perhaps the last one on earth, the fate of the world was in the hands of two young black girls.

The girl effortfully lifted herself out of her throne and strolled across the room. Until the two teenagers were face to face. “Who are you?”

On auto-pilot, Michelle rattled off, “SHIELD operative Mary Jane Watson. And you?”

“Princess Shuri of Wakanda,” the princess answered with an bemused lilt to her voice. “And what,” Shuri continued, “is a SHIELD agent doing in Wakanda?”

Mary Jane paused. What was she doing here in Wakanda? There had been an energy surge before the dusting in this tiny not-so-third-world country. The operative side of her brain concluded that the best place to find answers was here. But that answer was not the heart of Shuri’s question. It was  not why she had come. “The dusting can be reversed. I know it.” Mary Jane spoke more softly, “Or I have to believe it. So, I’m here to save Spider-Man. And my friends. And the rest of the world.” Shuri did not respond. Mary Jane stood up to her full stature, “Is that good with you?”

The whole room tensed.

Then, Shuri slowly smiled, “How can I help?”

* * *

The tragedy all began to make infinitely more sense when Steve Rogers recounted the terror of Thanos. All of the sudden, the grainy video that Mary Jane had watched to death in the Parker apartment of Peter being whipped up into space had context. And she could have killed him, for getting wrapped up in intergalactic shenanigans, if he were not already gone. Her stupid, noble Peter had thrown himself head first into the end of the world, the end of the universe.  

Mary Jane could not fathom something as purely destructive as the infinity stones being allowed to exist. The universe was all cruel if it was the mother of chaos and greed and death. Goodness raged against the darkness and it still won the day. People like Steve Rogers, and Thor, and Peter had fought the evil. And they had lost.

She tried not to imagine Peter on some godforsaken planet pushing through exhaustion to fight with pure will and grit. And losing.

Mary Jane comforted herself with her hopes, even if each day they grew duller and dimmer.

The backbone of this hope lay with the princess of Wakanda. Shuri posited that if people could be unmade by the infinity stones, they could be remade by them, too. It was not a perfect plan. But it was the only one that they had.

* * *

Thor and Rocket were the only aliens that fought in the Battle of Wakanda who survived. It was not a perfect team, but they were the only two with enough knowledge about Earth and Thanos and the galaxy to lead what-was-left-of-the-Avengers into Space to find Thanos. Thor had said when the mighty purple alien had snapped his fingers, he had unmade the universe and disappeared, but he had not dusted. Which meant he was still alive. He was somewhere in the universe hiding from his mass murder.

They did not have a concrete plan. But they had the outline of a goal—to find Thanos, retrieve the Infinity Gauntlet and save all those that had died. And that would have to do.

* * *

“I think you should stay behind,” Carol said the night before the mission moved out.

Mary Jane, who was looking through her exhaustive files on Peter Parker, looked up in surprise. Her mouth dropped open slightly, “Excuse me?”

Carol fell into one of the open chairs and slicked back her blonde hair with a shaky hand. “I think you should stay behind,” she said again. Mary Jane tried to interject, but Carol lifted her hand to silence her. The subordinate agent fell quiet. “You’re underage. Stark never should have let your boyfriend go on that first mission.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“And furthermore,” Carol ignored Mary Jane’s interruption. “You’re too close to this.”

Mary Jane protested, “No closer than Thor or Captain America or Hawkeye. Please, Carol. I need to be on that ship tomorrow.”

“Captain America and Thor and Hawkeye are adults. And there isn’t going to be one person on this mission that hasn’t lost someone. The snap touched the whole universe. But you are too close to this, Mary Jane. How many nights have you spent going through his file since we got here?” Mary Jane looked down. “Exactly.” Carol sighed, “I’d bring you in a heartbeat, if I thought you could handle it, but we can’t afford to bring liabilities.”

“I’m an agent,” Mary Jane said.

Carol shook her head, “You’re a child. Nick never should have recruited you this young. It was irresponsible.”

“Carol—”

“Mary Jane, please,” Carol pulled herself out of her chair. “ _For once, do as you’re told_.”

* * *

She was tasked to do as she was told.

So, the next day the aircraft lifted off the ground with the end of the world crew aboard.  

* * *

**With one notable stowaway.**


	3. judge, jury and executioner

Carol did not relent as she berated Mary Jane in front of the entire team in the heart of the ship, “What did I say to you? You were to stay on earth, where you belong.”

Mary Jane tipped her chin up defiantly, “I’m an asset to the team.”  
  
“You’re a teenager,” Steve interjected.  
  
“All due respect,” Mary Jane said without any respect to spare, “Your guys lost a teenager. I think listening to the adults because they’re adults stopped being a valid argument the moment Peter was flung into space.”  
  
“Mary Jane,” Carol said calmly, “That was a direct order.”  
  
“I resigned my post with Nick hours before the snap. I don’t report to you. To any of you,” she leaned leisurely against the wall. “Besides, it’s not like you can ground me now. We’re already several systems away from Earth.”  
  
Carol stormed out of the room.  
  
Mary Jane did not flinch.  
  
Thor lumbered up to Mary Jane and squinted down at her. She did not blink. The Asgardian smiled broadly, “I like your spunk Mary.”  
  
“Mary Jane,” she corrected him.  
  
He paused, thoroughly confused, “Is it Mary or Jane?”  
  
“It’s both,” she gawked at him. “Mary Jane.”  
  
“Mary or Jane.”  
  
“No,” she sighed. “Mary Jane.”  
  
“Yes, Mary or Jane??”  
  
“It’s BOTH!”  
  
“Shut up!” The wild raccoon in the corner yelled.

* * *

 

Now free from the tiny closet she had stowed away in, Mary Jane openly explored the ship. She ran her fingertips along the grooves of the metal as she walked from corridor to corridor. It was a strange ship, as if Carol had tried to make the steel and machinery as close to an earthly home as possible. It ached of homesickness.  
  
And Mary Jane couldn’t help but wonder if the ship that Peter had taken off in looked like this one, or if it had been a metal cage.  
  
Mary Jane brushed her hand across the small button imbedded in a nearby wall and with a whoosh an invisible door swung open. She stepped inside and tacked on the wall like some b-rated private investigator was a collage of information on all of the Avengers. Different colored strings connected the pictures. Mary Jane didn’t even try to discern what colors meant what. Her eyes were glued to one picture in particular— Peter.  
  
He was in his school clothes. He was wearing those jeans that never quite fit him right and he had his cozy Midtown gym sweatshirt hanging off his hands like kitten paws. The picture version of Peter was laughing with someone, but they were cut out of the frame.  
  
Her heart sank.  
  
Mary Jane touched her fingertips to the edge of the picture. Peter.  
  
“You shouldn’t go poking your nose around unfamiliar places. You never know which of these doors could be an airlock,” Carol said.  
  
She did not turn around the face the blonde. Mary Jane was singularly focused on Peter’s smiling face, “What is this room?”  
  
She heard, but did not see, Carol walk across the room and take up a seat on a desk. “Nick had me on call for Avengers duty as soon as he formed the team. If things got really bad I was supposed to swoop in to help. I figured I should know the names and faces of my would-be teammates.”  
  
“And the strings?” Mary Jane questioned.  
  
“Relationships. It would make it easier to keep all the politics straight if I had to touch down. Who slept with who. Who disliked who. Mentorships. Friendships. It kept it straight in my head.”  
  
Mary Jane nodded, and turned to face Carol head-on, “I’m not sorry.”  
  
Carol sighed, exhausted, “I know.”  
  
“And I know I can help.”  
  
“I know that, too.”  
  
“Then, why didn’t you let me come in the first place?”  
  
The older woman reached into the desk drawer beside her and pulled out a Manila envelope. The back of Mary Jane’s neck tingled. Carol pulled a picture free from the items inside, and offered it to the Junior agent. With an unsteady hand, she took the picture and flipped it over.  
  
There, in color, was the complete picture of Peter hanging on the wall. The person beside him was a beaming Mary Jane.  
  
Her breath hitched. And Carol spoke, deadly calm, “If we get there and it’s bad news, I can’t afford to have you lose your head. It’s why I tried to ground you.”  
  
“Shuri said,” Mary Jane felt her eyes water, “Dusting can be reversed.”  
  
“She thinks,” Carol corrected. “She _thinks_ it can be reversed. And what if he hasn’t been dusted? What if Thanos killed him outright? You have no idea what you’re walking into.”  
  
She shook her head violently, “Don’t say that.”  
  
Carol nodded to herself and pulled herself out of her chair. She walked silently to the door of the room and paused before she exited for one last word, “Whatever we find, you’re not ready.” 

* * *

It took nearly three weeks to retrace all of Thanos’ steps with half-pieced together information scattered across the cosmos. And even still, the team only landed on some semblance of helpful information when Carol tracked down a woman named Nebula drinking herself under the table in at a cantina in the Mists.  
  
The blue woman swatted Carol away, “I said get out of my face.”  
  
The raccoon, Rocket, bore his teeth, “Where. Is. Quill?”  
  
“Dead,” she said, meanly, slamming her glass down on the bar table. “Ash. Along with all your stupid friends.”  
  
Rocket launched himself toward her. Thor grabbed the raccoon by the middle and swung him away before a fight could break out. “Settle, rabbit, settle,” Thor said.  
  
“We need your help,” Carol said, unruffled. “Two of our guys went missing. We need to find them, then find Thanos and reverse the dusting.”  
  
Nebula snorted into her glass, “You’re going to stop Thanos? There’s only one woman in the galaxy that can and she’s dead.”  
  
Rocket stopped thrashing in Thor’s arms. His voice was devoid of any emotion, raked free of it from the heavy weight of loss, “Gamora.”  
  
Nebula sneered. “If you’re looking for that Terran in the red suit, he’s out back.”  
  
“Peter,” Mary Jane sprinted. She pushed through the crowds of aliens and wiggles her way out the back door. “Peter are you—“  
  
But Peter wasn’t there. Instead, she was met with Tony Stark’s blank, red eyes. His knees were tucked into his chest and he had a half-empty bottle dangling from his fist. “Mr. Stark?” Mary Jane whispered.  
  
The tech billionaire snapped his head up, “Peter?” Mary Jane nearly heaved. They both searched for the same ghost. The lost boy.  
  
“No,” she shook her head, “I’m Mary Jane Watson. I was assigned to—“  
  
“Peter’s case by SHIELD. I know. I read your reports,” Tony slumped back against the brick.  
  
She was almost too afraid to ask, “Mr. Stark, where is Peter?”  
  
He moved his mouth, he replied, but all Mary Jane heard was white, tinny noise. It rung like church bells in her ears. She knew what he said, and Carol was right. She was not ready. “No,” she whispered. “He’s fine,” she broke.  
  
Tony turned his head back into the safety of his bottle and Mary Jane felt her world tumble from beneath her feet. Alone, again. In a galaxy full of beings, she was all alone. 

* * *

Carol struggled to sober Tony up. Nebula outrightly refused and no one on the team, save Thor, had the skill to stop the habit, and even Thor was a little too afraid to get too close to Nebula. There was more broken in her than just nuts and bolts. Still, with Tony and Nebula’s help, the incomplete and fractured Avengers’ began to plot to save the universe.

Nebula had thoughts and leads as to where to find Thanos, which she never divulged to anyone but Carol in long, restless meetings behind durasteel that Mary Jane was not allowed to penetrate. She had been told, in not so many words, that she had been grounded from sensitive intel. Her antics as a stowaway saw to that.

Being left out of important meetings meant that she was often left to wait. And wait. And wait. She once read that to become an expert in anything, people had to invest 10,000 hours. She mirthlessly thought at the pace the team was going to save the universe she was slowly going to become an expert in waiting.

Tony watched her from the corners, too, which was unsettling. He looked at her with his bleary, newly-sober eyes, and it grated on her patience. “Can I help you?” she snapped at him one afternoon.

The billionaire took a sip of a tea that smelled funky from five feet away. He slapped his lips together and cut to the heart of her insecurities that had been building steadily in the weeks she had been stranded in space without agency and purpose, “If we get him back, what are you going to tell him?”

Mary Jane forcefully scoffed, playing the role of indifferent to his tasteless probing, “That’s none of your business.”

“Sure,” Tony agreed, “But he is going to have questions. Starting with why you’re in space.”

“Let’s just worry about getting him undusted.” Tony infuriatingly lifted his cup to his mouth and took another swig of the foul tea. Mary Jane snapped, “You don’t get to judge me. You’re the one that got him killed.”

Tony immediately reacted. He slammed his cup down on a nearby table and leapt out of his chair ferociously, “That isn’t fair. I tried to ground him.”

“Not hard enough.”

“What is with you Midtown kids getting yourselves propelled into space, anyway? Huh? Especially when the adults tell you not to follow us. To stay put.”  

“You got Peter killed!” Mary Jane accused him. There was no room for forgiveness in her tone. All of that had been swept away by the wind as everyone she loved died. Hopelessness made her cruel. Devastation striped her of all of her good will.

Tony’s eye twitched. “I know.”

They did not speak again until the team found Thanos on a small, uninhabited moon in the same system as Titan six days later. 

* * *

Iron-Man yelled to Mary Jane across the foreign planet’s battlefield as Thanos used the full power of the Infinity Stones to beat back their entire team. “Mary Jane, the blaster! Use the blaster!”

She fumbled for the small gun that Rocket strapped to her belt before they landed planet-side. She expected the kick of the blaster to be like Earth weapons. It was not. She launched the laser at Thanos’ head and it kicked her back into the dirt. It knocked the wind out of her. It made her head pound.

Mary Jane tried to rally her body, to stand, but she was disoriented.

From afar, she could see the rest of her team throwing everything, their full power, in rapid succession at the purple alien. Thanos looked at the Avengers like they were mild irritants, not a fully superpowered team. Only Carol continually landed disarming blows on Thanos’ person.

She made him bleed.

And Mary Jane found the strength to stand.

She lifted the blaster again, squinted and zeroed-in on the Thanos’ right hand. The gauntlet seemed fused into his skin. There were violent scars licking up his arms. The residual damage from destroying half the universe was gruesome.

She exhaled and fired off the blaster. It chinked off of the gauntlet and the speed of the blast compounded with the angle from which she shot it off, wiggled the gauntlet free from his hand a little. A little was all they needed.

Rocket tossed his entire body on Thanos’ arm and began to tug the gauntlet off. Thanos tried to toss Rocket away, but Clint let arrow after arrow fly, occupying Thanos. Steve ran across the dirt and slammed his shield into Thanos’ face, and down he went like a child. Kicked into the ground.

One against a team was barely enough to keep Thanos down. Then, mercifully, the Rocket got the gauntlet free.

Steve took it up and slid the gauntlet on his arm. Carol, Thor, and Nebula restrained Thanos. And Tony panicked, “Steve. Whatever you’re thinking. Don’t.”

“He snapped the universe away,” Steve looked down at the gauntlet, transfixed. “I can snap it back.”

Natasha shook her head, “That much power will kill you, Cap.”

“It’s seventy years overdue.”

“Steve—” Another voice pleaded.

Captain America snapped his fingers. And saved the world.

* * *

The world pieced together like a puzzle. Things happened out of order. Dust crowded the heavens, like an impending rainstorm, and then people began to reform. Wherever they had died, they returned.

May Parker woke up on her kitchen floor, clutching the towel she had grabbed the morning she disappeared to wipe down the counters.

Ned Leeds returned in the Parker bathroom and startled when he was suddenly in front of a mirror, as if to watch his hands.

Peter Parker woke up staring at a browning sky on a planet called Titan. He almost expected to see Tony peering over him as Peter begged not to go, but he was all alone.

* * *

The Infinity Gauntlet clattered to the ground. There was no Steve Rogers. Just a hunk of metal.

Thor roared in fury and swung his hammer. At once he was judge, jury and executioner.

* * *

She tried to be patient when the team flew to Titan to collect the Guardians and Peter and someone named Doctor Strange. Mary Jane tried not to let her hope get the best of her. Steve had sacrificed everything to save the universe, but there were not guarantees that it worked. After all, Shuri was the most brilliant person that Mary Jane had ever met and even she had called the regeneration theory unlikely.

Still, when the metal doors whooshed open when they landed on Titan, she anxiously tapped her foot. There were too many variables, too many unknowns, and she did not like her odds of seeing Peter again. But damn her, she hoped. Beside her, Carol held Mary Jane’s hand.

When she stepped off the ships, her eyes searched the desolate landscape for Peter. She saw others she did not recognize, but not Peter. Her heart began to race and thud and thunder. Until—

“—MJ?”

She turned around and there, in some stupid upgraded costume with his hair blown every which way, was Peter Parker. She was not sure who moved first, her or him, but one moment they were steps apart and they next they were crashing into each other’s arms. Gripping. Clutching. Breathless.

“You’re alive,” she choked on tears that threatened to spill loose. “You’re alive.”

“You’re here,” he replied, kissing every available inch of her face. “How are you here?”

Mary Jane threw her arms around his neck and tugged him to her almost too tightly. They swayed. “You got yourself beamed into space, you absolute moron. What else was I supposed to do? Wait at home?”

He laughed hoarsely, “God, I missed you.” He held her face in his hands and whisked her into the most singular kiss of her life thus far. The dreary planet ceases to weep and, for the first time in a century, it sparkled with life. The kiss revived whatever life was once on Titan, when young people there were able to laugh, fall in love, and live. It was a fleeting memory of happiness for the planet. And a joyous moment of reunion for the lovers.

From beyond their embrace, Carol handed out warm blankets to the returned dead. When she reached Peter, Mary Jane was loathe to extricate herself from the shower of heady kisses. He laughed against her mouth, “Michelle, hang on, this nice lady–”

“—Carol,” Captain Marvel offered.

“Carol,” Peter amended, “has something for us.”  

“Nice to meet you, Mister Parker,” Carol smiled, “And well done, Agent Watson,” Carol said, offering Mary Jane a warm blanket.

Peter blinked. And then, his eyes narrowed, “Agent Watson?”

* * *

“You lied,” he said bluntly. He laid out the truth perfectly clear and did not leave any wiggle room for half-truths or silly excuses. After years of sustaining a cover, Mary Jane was finally all out in the open without the hulking shadow of Michelle to keep her warm. It was a relief unlike any she had ever known.

Yet, she could not miss the look of pure betrayal in his mournful eyes. Her heart didn’t allow it. Peter Parker looked devastated. His entire world had just been torn apart from the inside-out. He had been erased from existence. And to top it all off, she was a liar. “You lied to me,” he said a little louder. “And I trusted you. I trusted you more than anyone.”

“Peter, what you have to understand,” Mary Jane adopted the perfect, calm SHIELD persona. She loathed the professional tone that hijacked her voice. The spy, not the girl, had taken over.

He pushed back, “I don’t have to understand a thing.”

The metal hull of the ship did not echo. There was nothing and no one to hear them in space. The other Avengers were all congregating on the top deck of the ship, which now felt like another galaxy all on its own. Mary Jane and Peter were completely alone.

“So what?” He challenged her and inadvertently stepped into her space. It was as if he was regaining his sea legs, after the dusting. Space and time were still foreign things. “I was some kind of mark?”

“Mission,” she corrected him. “I’m not an assassin.”

He choked on a bitter laugh, “What? Like I’m supposed to believe that? After everything? I don’t trust you. I can’t.”

His words hurt. They chipped away at the hopes she had been harboring for weeks as she searched the galaxy for him. At night, she had stared at the ceiling of the small cabin she had been afforded as a stowaway and dreamt of him. She had concocted a million versions of their reunion but fighting on the ship, him being unforgiving in the face of her deceit, had not been in her imaginings.

They had been far more amorous.

The hurt blackened her blood and she felt her heart began to build walls. The lie popped out of her so easily, so coldly that she almost believed it. Her words were callous and calculated in the very manner in which she had been trained. And she wanted to take them back as soon as they flapped free. “I had to save Nick. Saving you too was just collateral to that mission.”

She watched her words impact his chest, like a bullet to the heart. He buckled under the cruelty of the lie and shrunk away. “Fine,” he said. “I get it.”

“Peter,” she said helplessly.

His shoulders tensed just before he reached the door and he paused. Mary Jane heard her heart plead for him to turn around. To give her one more chance. He did not look back. “I took you to my Dad’s spot,” he whispered. And then, he wrenched open the door and disappeared into the darkness of the ship.


	4. cling to the ruin of each other

There was only this—silence.

The galaxy was a vacuum and the ship was siloed, making it easy for Mary Jane to hide from the other passengers on their long journey back to Earth.

As she laid awake, restless in her bunker, she tirelessly recounted her fight with Peter. She was not sure what she expected from Peter finding out about her secret identity. There was a childish, hopeful part of her that figured he was a person with secrets, too; and if anyone was going to understand masks it would have been Spider-Man. She had not anticipated the betrayal that washed over his face like a red, stinging slap. She had not expected him to leave her. Especially, not after the dusting. 

She laid in her dark room and counted the divots in the ceiling. There were thirty-two. When she finished counting, she began again. It was mindless work, but it passed the time. Mary Jane did not want to think about the consequences that awaited her on Earth. Without SHIELD and without Peter, she did not have a discernible path forward. She would have to forge it on her own and alone. 

If Earth, if Peter, was going to be lost to her, Mary Jane could almost picture a new life in space with Carol. She knew the older woman would not hesitate to take her on grand, bold and new adventures. That could be a new life, certainly, but it was not the one she had dreamed of underneath the canopy of stars where Peter Parker had kissed her and altered the universe. Or, at least, her universe.

There was a thud on her metal door. Mary Jane rolled away from the sound and faced the wall. Another knock came and she did not answer. 

The knocker was impatient. The door flew open. “Did you not hear me knocking?” Carol demanded.

Mary Jane pulled her blanket up over her face, shutting out the world and Captain Marvel. She preferred to be left alone. “I’m talking to you, Agent Watson,” Carol huffed.

Mary Jane smiled thinly, “Mary Jane. I told you. I resigned my post.”

“So what?” Carol sat on the edge of her bed. The thin mattress dipped. “Some boy doesn’t want you and now you’re gonna lay in bed forever?”

“Not forever. But for the foreseeable future, yes.” 

“You lied. He got mad. Couples fight, MJ.” 

Mary Jane sat up and faced Carol head-on. Her resolve was steely and stubborn, “Our entire relationship was a lie. He was an assignment.” 

Carol brushed some wild curls out of Mary Jane’s face. The action startled Mary Jane. The action warmed Mary Jane, too. She tried to repress how much she craved the motherly affection. It had been a long time since her own mother had brushed her hair out of her eyes and made the whole world feel less intensely uncertain. “You,” Carol’s voice was gentle, “were a little girl that was put in an impossible situation. And he’s just a boy that’s come back from the dead. You should both cut each other a lot of slack.”

Her eyes had watered, prickled and nearly teared in the weeks they searched the universe for Peter. But tonight was the first night Mary Jane cried. And it had been a long time since she felt safe enough to cry in front of someone else, to share her vulnerabilities. She nearly cringed away from her own emotions. To cry was to own sadness and to own sadness was to admit defeat. Or so she had been taught. 

Nick Fury’s lesson were burrowed deep in the pit of her stomach. She did not know anything else. She wore shame well. Shame was instructive. It kept her focused on the task ahead. It kept her eyes away from the past where only pain remained.

But it had caught up with her in the end. Carol had coaxed such unbearable emotions to the surface. And when she cried, she wept.

“Oh, MJ,” Carol expertly wiped a pesky tear away. “Honey, it’s okay.”

“He hates me,” Mary Jane hiccuped. “He hates me so much. He just left the room. How could he just leave me?” The unspoken word _again_ hung devastatingly in the air, demanding to be heard. When he had catapulted himself into space and died, Mary Jane had torn apart the universe to get him back. When he returned to her, after all those weeks of relentless searching and fighting, he had a choice to stay with her and he willingly left. Peter Parker was always leaving her behind. 

Carol patiently said, “He found out you were a SHIELD agent moments after he came back from the dead. Be kind with yourself, but also be fair to him. It was a lot for one day.” 

Mary Jane shook her head and tried to stifle her now free-flowing tears, “I don’t care. I gave up everything for him.” 

“Does he know that?”

* * *

Peter was sitting sunken over the arm of one of the oversized chairs on the brig. The officer chairs had been built for aliens of all shapes and sizes. It dwarfed the human that occupied it. He looked even smaller still with the miserable expression etched on his features.

Mary Jane tentatively approached the group of Avengers all settled there, but her eyes were only on Peter. He looked exhausted and sad. His sadness hung on him like an overgrown cape, too loud and unnatural for his frame that knew laughter and joy much more than despair. She saw that dying had taken its toll on him, that Carol was right. 

“Peter,” she whispered.

The whole room shuttered silent. All of the long-faced Avengers watched her with wide and surprised eyes. It had been several days since she had dared leave her little room. They had all been together, regrouping and reacquainting themselves for days. She had been glaringly absent in all of the revelry.

Peter did not look at her. He intently glared at the ground. Tony cleared his throat, “Peter, Michelle is—“

“Mary Jane,” Peter corrected his mentor. His voice was venom. “Her name is Mary Jane.”

“Peter. Please,” she pleaded. 

“Don’t,” he stood. Peter stormed down the plated floor and it echoed mutinously, filling all of the awkward empty spaces that the Avengers talking had filled. No one laughed or moved or breathed, it seemed. Mary Jane hated how exposed she felt.

She had hoped they could have had this conversation in private. Instead, nosey eyes watched on.

“Peter—“

“Mary Jane,” he replied meanly. “God, don’t act like you care. It’s cruel.”

“I do care,” she insisted.

“I’m sorry. I must have missed that in all of the lying you did to me. For, you know, years.”

Mary Jane flickered her watery eyes to the ground. She had never known Peter to speak to her with anything other than sweetness. It was a devasting wound in her already bleeding heart. “I wanted to tell you.”

He crossed to the large window that looked out at space. “Go away, MJ.”

Tony sighed, “Come on, kid. She’s trying.”

Clint met Mary Jane’s eyes and offered her a weak smile. She returned a watery one. She could see his eyes calculating the best way to help. She knew he had children of his own. Barton spoke to the rest of the team, “Alright. This is messy enough without all of us looking on. Hop to. Outta here.”

Doctor Strange did not hesitate to stride out of the room with his billowing cape licking at his heels. The others followed suit. Only Carol remained behind. She looked between the two teenagers nervously and addressed Mary Jane only, “Are you gonna be okay?”

Mary Jane nodded tersely.

“Okay,” Carol replied. And she, too, took her leave.

When they were alone in the room with a window of stars, Mary Jane fiddled with her hands. They were slick with sweat. “Peter,” she tried.

His shoulders tensed. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Peter, I gave up everything to be here with you.”

He whirled around on her. His jaw was tight, but his eyes were shiny with unshed tears. He was hurting so much. And she had only served to make the pain worse, more potent. When she had embarked on this journey all those weeks ago, she had done it for him, for them, and within one day of having him back it had all unraveled. She wanted to go back to that field where he had looked at her with the cosmos in his eyes.

If she thought back hard enough, she could almost imagine herself in the thick of all of that greenery with his soft lips on hers. The whole world was that kiss, once. Then, she had lost him and everything he had so willingly offered.

“Peter—”

“Was any of it real?” he whispered.

She took an unwise step forward and tried not to flinch when he took an equal step back. He was flat against the glass, and she did not press the advantage. She willed herself to keep the distance between them. Even as the universe called them together. Always together. Always more.

Always. Always. Always.

“All of it,” she replied.

His gaze was sharp. She expected the blow that followed. “Except the parts that were lies.”

She snapped, “I flew across the universe to find you. I fought Thanos for you. And you think I don’t care?”

He took two long strides toward her, until they were practically nose to nose. He growled, “I know you don’t.”

Her heart thudded loudly. “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she replied.

“No, of course not. Just let more lies pile up.”

His breath was hot against her cheeks. She wanted to slam her fist into his chest, to rage and rage against the accusations, but she would not stoop so low. He already believed she was some inconstant, feral liar. She would not prove him right. If he wanted to hurl insults at her after everything she had done, she would let him.

She had said her piece. Now, it was time to look to the future without him. It was clear to her now that the truth had rattled them beyond repair.

“Well,” she took a deep, clarifying breath, “Now you know the truth.”

She turned on him, and instantly his had shot out. It grabbed her wrist and stopped her from going. The touch was an immediate, visceral relief. “MJ,” he murmured. The intimate, soft sound was a long-gone relic of their day in the field. The stars that looked on them now were the same ones that had twinkled in the sky the night he slanted his mouth over hers and reset the course of her life.

She was afraid he might do it again.

That with one whispered word she would forsake everything.

The power he had over her was immeasurable.

She wondered if he knew how freely he wielded it.

They were so close that she nearly staggered back to give her mind the room to think. He was muddying her thoughts and her purpose. They were fighting, she reminded herself, and that meant that she would not give into this—the this of her and him.

In the end, she did not give in. He did.

Before she could withdraw her wrist from his grip, his arms were solidly around her. There was a heady rush of yielding that came next. And when he slanted his mouth over hers, she completely surrendered.

They had only kissed once before, in a field where children dared to dream of a soft and uncomplicated love. The reality of their relationship was far messier. It was prickly and blurred and founded in deep betrayal and decide.

Yet, in spite of that, she could not deny the rightness of his touch.

He bent her head back to smother her in an utterly dazzling kiss. His inconsistent mouth was a traitor to his own broken heart. She could feel the individual pieces flutter under his skin as he molded his chest against her own, aching for more of her. And she was kissing him back. Boldly.

His mouth was hard and unrelenting. It was contrary to everything she thought she knew about him. She was acquainted with his laughter, his blushing cheeks, and his sweet nature. But there was another man in the shadow of the boy that she knew and he was desperate for her. She was appalled that she was wanting for him, too.

Her voice sounded very far away from her when she spoke between ungraceful kisses, “It was real. All of it. All of us.”

His own voice was so low, it was almost a long-forgotten whisper, “I want to forgive you.”

“Let go, Peter. Let it all go,” she implored him with more kisses. Whatever was hidden in the folds of her lips seemed to convince him, or, at the very least, placate him. He was wholly silent. The only sounds that he made were little echoes of pleasure as he swept his tongue along the bottom of her lip, begging for entrance. She granted it.

They kissed and kissed until even kissing was not enough to soothe the aching between them. The more they touched, the more she burned. She knew if it kept barreling toward new, uncharted places that it was very likely they would burn to ash and be lost to each other once more.

She risked it.

He grabbed at her skin, and her clothes, in a frenzy. Together, they brushed worthless clothing out of the way and Peter bent his head down to lavish hot presses against her stomach. She dropped her head back and gazed out at the expanse of stars. The lovely universe set out before her very eyes.

Mary Jane fisted her hands in his hair as his messy kisses searched for the next patch of skin he wanted to devour.

She squirmed out of her shirt and shimmied out of her bra. She did not send even a passing thought to the semi-public nature of this display. Anyone could have walked in and caught them swept up in this dangerous dance. Neither of them cared. She almost wondered if Peter dared someone to interrupt them.

She was not sure how, but she knew now that they had each other, they would never let the other go. They deserved peace. They had earned it.

He rattled her composure when his tongue circled her peaks. She cried out. He bit the apex of her shoulder. She growled.

They stumbled backward into the large chair that Peter had spent the better half of a week sulking in and, with her in his lap, the gigantic stature of the furniture did not dwarf them. It seemed the perfect size for them and an invitation not to stop.

_Never_ , she thought, she would never stop.

“MJ,” he indistinctly prayed against her skin. She kissed his own bare chest in response. His eyes were glistening. Hers were, too. They only slowed for the half-of-a-heart-beat to kiss. This kiss was a promise, or a solemn vow. Together always.

Always. Always. Always.

They divested of the rest of their clothes so quickly that when they were finally naked, it was almost a surprise. Peter blinked up at her. She brushed her lips against his, and lowered herself down on him.

There was the briefest twinge of pain in the sea of pleasure. Peter shuttered. She bit at her lip to stop a cry. But even in all of that, there was a quiet. Their restless souls, at once, were still. Suspended. Listless.

Peter moved first. There was a pinch that Mary Jane grunted through. He tilted her chin down and captured her mouth in a kiss. The softest kisses and the most measured thrusts gave way to a softness that she had never known. She was a callused girl, hardened from everything she had experienced.

He was purifying the hurt and paving a new path, a new life. The very one she had dreamed of under that canopy of stars from what felt like a lifetime ago. The wash of stars that lit their naked bodies in a halo now watched on.

Mary Jane clutched his shoulder with one hand and began to ride the waves of mutual pleasure. Her brow was shiny with sweat and her body was shaking from exertion.

Their pace hastened. She tumbled toward some untouchable ending. Whatever was waiting for her there sparkled.

Peter clutched at her waist with one hand and his other splayed out across the curves of her spine. She kissed him, again. And she did not stop. Not even when their kisses became more wild panting than kisses. Not when he groaned her name, her true name, or when she whined for more.

To which he did not disappoint.   
He thrust up into her with a wiry hold, at best, on his own passions. Until the chord broke and Mary Jane fell apart.

She clenched around him and dragged Peter Parker into the cosmos.

Starlight.

Truth.

Her. 

Him.

It was all true.

She recovered slowly. He took even longer. But even in their exhaustion, their lips sounded against each other.

* * *

The rest of the journey back to Earth was filled with long talks and even longer drags of kisses. There were things to learn, things to unlearn, and a whole relationship to rebuild. Some days were softer than others. Some days were downright hard.

But together, they worked toward a future they could embark upon together.

* * *

When they touched down on Earth, Peter stumbled down the lift into the waiting arms of his Aunt and Ned. Mary Jane watched the scene from the top of the lift, just a ways apart. This was his moment. They would have days, months, years even to be together now.

She did not blink when Carol stood beside her. She had grown accustomed to the older woman’s presence. “He looks happy,” Carol remarked.

Mary Jane crossed her arms over her chest and nodded, “He missed them.”

Carol turned to face Mary Jane head-on. “I will miss you.”

The admission caught the former SHIELD agent off guard. She sputtered, “Carol—”

“I was going to ask you to come with me. There is a whole lot of universe to explore. But—” she lifted her hand when MJ tried to speak, “—I knew what your answer would be.”

Without hesitation, Mary Jane threw her arms around Carol’s neck and squeezed her tight. The other woman immediately returned the hug. She admitted, lowly, “I will miss you, too.”

“MJ,” Peter politely and bashfully interrupted the hug.

Carol released Mary Jane, “Take care of her, Peter.”

Peter looked directly at MJ and agreed, “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of each other.”

And they did.


End file.
